Diabetes mellitus is a condition
in which the body produces too little or ineffectively uses insulin, resulting
in high levels of glucose in the blood. Diabetes has long been associated with
heart disease. It is known that persons with diabetes are more likely to develop
coronary heart disease (CHD) because diabetes can cause irritation of the blood
vessel walls, adversely affect cholesterol profile and raise blood pressure. The
prevalence levels of developed countries like United States and Australia are
8.3 percent and 7.4 percent respectively, as at 2004.

A report released in 2004 in the
medical journal, Diabetes Care, revealed that more than one-fifth of patients
with type-2 diabetes have decreased blood flow to the heart. However, no
symptoms to suggest there is a problem.

This serious condition, known as
myocardial ischemia, occurs when the heart does not receive enough blood to meet
the metabolic needs, usually due to plaque build-up in the coronary arteries.
Experts depict this disease as “silent” when there are no symptoms being
presented. No chest pain is experienced and in fact there are no symptoms at all
before a heart attack.

Doctors usually have had
difficulty to detect the early-stage heart disease in type-2 diabetes patients
because there may be nerve damage throughout the body. Chest pain, which is the
heart's most important signal, is dampened considerably since insufficient blood
and oxygen are obtained.

The study was conducted by a group
of researchers from the Yale University School of Medicines in New Haven,
Connecticut. The patients for the Detection of Ischemia in Asymptomatic
Diabetics (DIAD) study were recruited in such a way that there was not even the
slightest suggestion of the presence of heart disease.

The researchers had found that
even in these patients with no symptoms, 22 percent had myocardial ischemia. In
the DIAD study, the researchers analyzed data from 522 patients with type 2
diabetes. Of the patients with silent myocardial ischemia, only 60 percent met
American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines for heart disease screening.

As suspected by the researchers,
the rate of silent ischemia is even higher in the real world. The study again
shows that diabetes is a very serious risk factor for heart disease. According
to the researchers, the ADA should review its guidelines for screening heart
disease for type-2 diabetes because they obviously miss almost half the patients
with silent disease.

As mother, your dieting habits can
have a bad influence on your children, especially when your dieting is based on
body image and not health. Some research indicates that youngsters learn
attitude about dieting through observation. This means that some youngsters may
develop an unhealthy fixation on body image.